Praying for the dead

  is something you might do even if you

  have no religious faith or belief in any kind of afterlife

  out of respect for their prior requests perhaps or simply to affirm

  your connection, or even to redeem your many failures toward them.

  But if you believe in an afterlife it invites questions.

  Are they, like gods, able to see us all the time and all of us at once?

  Or are they like lights that flick on when their names are mentioned?

  And do they even know it is you who invokes their names?

 Do they each have a celestial account where our prayers are deposited

 and for which they get special rewards the higher the balance they maintain?